


The Coward Heart

by Anonymous



Category: Axis Powers Hetalia
Genre: Gen, Historical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-20
Updated: 2011-07-20
Packaged: 2017-11-03 03:06:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/376425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every May the 30th, France remembers how Jeanne died and he did nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Coward Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at [](http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/profile)[ **hetalia_kink**](http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/)  for this [prompt](http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/18439.html?thread=64951303#t64951303) under the title of “Jeanne.” Kind of a crossover with Gunnerkrigg Court, except...not? You don’t have to know GC to understand this.

_Non...rien de rien_

France regrets many things, all of them in the past, as regrets must be. But a nation's past is so much wider and deeper than a human's, fraught and fractured, with so many complexities and discrepancies. It’s an ocean compared to a drop of rain. And it means so much _more_.

_...Non je ne regrette rien..._

France regrets many things, all of them in the past. The same things, over the centuries, as history repeats itself in ways as complex and simple as a spider's web. He regrets the deaths of his people that happened so inevitably, so hopelessly. He regrets not being cunning enough, after so many centuries, to see the outcome of the battles. He regrets not being strong enough to save victims.

_Ni le bien...qu'on m'a fait_

France regrets many things, all of them in the past. He and the other nations were at war many times in the past, and so many cruelties happened between them that it’s impossible to count them all. He does not hold grudges for harm done to him back then. It is no use. He prides himself on being forward-looking. Plenty of things happened in the past, but he can live with the memory and the sadness. He can move on. Europe is no longer fraught with war, as it once was, which is a much welcome change.

_...Ni le mal, tout ça m'est bien égal..._

France does not regret things.

::

It hurts still, sometimes. Many times. Almost a physical pain, as vivid and lingering and irreparable as any scar from the Battle of Ardennes or the Battle of France. He has dreams that, though few and far between, are enough to tear his heart ragged once again. But mostly he manages to keep the sadness at bay.  
Except.

On May the 30th, it all comes rushing back. Unbidden, the memories come blazing, shrieking, _mourning_ with the sound of the highest note on a violin. They flash through his mind, always in the same order.

On May the 30th, in every corner of his vision, in every shadow, whenever he closes his eyes,

_he_

_sees_

_Jeanne._

::

It was early March, so a fire burned in the fireplace of the great hall at Chinon, but a chill still lingered in the air, sliding over the wall-stones like water. Charles’ eyes glinted in the firelight, intrigued, desperate, and slightly contemptuous, as he stood dressed in the clothes of one of his courtiers. And France stood by his side, by the man who should be his king.

And Jeanne entered, and France did not know what to think, did not know what to make of her. When he looked at her, dressed in men’s clothes, standing straight and tall, something inside him cried. There was something about her, some tilt in her chin, something about how she radiated confidence and faith in a faint corona that made France utterly speechless. It was like, suddenly, there was something to hold onto in a world where they, he, were all drowning and lost with despair.

And then she knelt before the disguised Dauphin and spoke.

“God give you a happy life, sweet King!"

And the scene changes...

...and they were at Orléans, and this time France stood at Jeanne’s side, because he could not bear to leave her.

“Are you not afraid, _la Pucelle_? Do you not have doubts, Jeanne?” He said, and watched as she knelt on the ground in the forest, away from camp. Her hands, callused and raw, were folded and her eyes closed, and her face was calm and serene and beatific.

“Dear France,” she says, tenderly. “Do not worry. But for the grace of God, we shall retake Orléans.” And she stands.

“I am not afraid; I was born to do this.”

::

And when Jeanne came to Charles and asked to be put in command of the army, so she could retake Reims, France supported her. What else could he do?

“It must be Jeanne,” he said. “It will work with no one else. It must be her.”

Because by then he loved her, and the people loved her, for she was their Jeanne, their holy maiden, their savior.

She owed nothing to them, yet she chose to rise up out of nowhere at a time when they were not only fighting a losing battle but a losing war—

—it’s no wonder they loved her. No wonder _he_ loved her. He had never been so proud to be her France, to be the country she loved and honored.

She was his hope; when she spoke, he believed her words.

_She would lead them to victory._ They would win, and France would be saved.

::

And memories flashed by, yanked out from the deepest depths of his mind, each giving a little twang at his heart as it emerged before his eyes, and he was filled with dread, because he knew how it would end—he had seen it again and again in the darkness—

The month of June flew by, heavy and white-gold, filled with the smell of hot metal and battles under a burning high sky.

...One victory followed another: Jargeau, Meung-sur-Loire...Beaugency...Troyes...

And Jeanne shone bright and proud, like summer itself, as she waged war against those who claimed France’s land for their own.

And Dauphin Charles was King Charles VII...

“I am sorry, _mon cherie_ Jeanne. I tried to persuade them...la Trémoille...”

Her hands with fingernails cut to the quick as she re-tied the bandage around her leg...

—and a solemn face.

“I admit I am a little troubled about this turn of events as well, dear France. But do not worry. I am sure His Majesty will make the right decision in the end. We shall yet prevail. God is with us.”

—was in the last group to leave the battlefield, riding hard on the heels of the rest of the army--

—Burgundians—like a tide—surroundi—

_“Go_ , France! Flee! I will be all right!”

—her horse rearing as the arrow caught it in the side and she was silhouetted for one moment against the sky and it her Jeanne Jeanne Jeanne there was _screaming_ but he was the only one hearing the—

He heard later that she refused to surrender.

“...Jeanne’s capture is unfortunate. However, we can continue.”

“...you cannot do this..!”

“France, remember where your loyalties lie. I am king.”

“My loyalties lie with the maiden who saved me! _You owe her your throne!_ You must remember where your _gratitude_ should lie!”

“With God, you mean, as she says? If it is true what she says about God, then God will save her.”

“...No...no, you cannot do this! No...no...”

::

France had not thought even her death could break his heart any further. He knew it was coming, he told himself, steeled himself.

He did not hear all of what they told him on that day. But he heard enough.

“Charles...that monster! He forced me...he wouldn’t let me save her! Jeanne...”

_Jeanne_  
Non rien de rien

Non je ne regrette rien

“She was...all alone. Waiting...when she died. And I did nothing.”

And then there was noise. Everything was filled with noise. It never stopped and never dimmed...

The wailing. High, tuneless, and wordless, the sound of absolute despair—

Fire, burning. A grief in the shape of a fire, burning a body to ashes.

Jeanne was dead and all was lost.

Jeanne was dead.

_Jeanne._

And even when his breath ran out and his throat would not make another sound, when the wailing died from hearing, it was carried on, reverberating throughout his body and jarring against his bones until his heart was stripped bare and raw and tender and he was numb with a loss he could only feel the magnitude of. 

::

On May 30th...

France regrets. France does not regret.

Regrets. Does not regret.

Regret-does not-regret-do not-regret-not-regret-not-regretnotregretnotregretnotregretnot--

_Non, rien de rien,_

_Non je ne regrette rien_

—regretnotregretnotregretnotregretnotregretnotregretnotregretnotregretnotregretnotregretnotregretnotregretnot—

_She died and I did nothing._

_Elle mourais et je ne faisais rien._

France did not regret the things done to him. Come suffering, come war, famine, plague--he did not regret them.

France regretted the things done to her.

He should have saved her.

_...and I did nothing..._

He can never, never reconcile that. 

And the noise and regret spread and spread, overflowing the confines of a mostly human soul, pouring into the land and the people.

On May 30th, the words echo.

...scribbled on a post-it note...whispered absentmindedly...threaded through the notes of a tune...uttered in a dream to unexplainable tears...

They echo everywhere, from the streets of Paris, the shores of the Seine, the cliffs of Normandy--engraved in the walls of every city, in the rivers, the plains, the mountains, the shores of the sea...

The land remembers. And the people remember. Something that was never seen by living human eyes is felt in the human heart.

On May 30th, Francis Bonnefoy mourns.

_She died and I did nothing._

_Elle mourais et je ne faisais rien._  
And all of France mourns with him.

_She died and we did nothing._

Elle mourais et nous ne faisions rien. 

 


End file.
